Multi-platform computer system management for virtualized environments

• US 8,539,484 B1
• Filed: 05/24/2011
• Issued: 09/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Richard Offer
• Original Assignee: HotLink Corp.
• Inventors: Offer, Richard, LeBlanc, Lynn
• Primary Examiner(s): Puente, Emerson
• Assistant Examiner(s): DO, STEVEN M
• Application Number:
  US13/115,008
• Time in Patent Office: 847 Days
• Field of Search: 718/1
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A virtual machine management system is configured to manage a plurality of computing systems each configured to support virtual machines. The virtual management system is configured to transparently manage the computing systems even in cases where the virtual machines are supported by different hypervisors. In some embodiments, this capability simplifies the management of cloud computing systems including software provided by different virtual machine vendors.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a first computing system including non-volatile storage and a first hypervisor, the first hypervisor configured to support a plurality of virtual machines on the first computing system and to receive commands according to a first hypervisor protocol;

a second computing system including non-volatile storage and a second hypervisor, the second hypervisor configured to support a plurality of virtual machines on the second computing system and to receive commands according to a second hypervisor protocol, the first hypervisor protocol and the second hypervisor protocol having first and second command spaces, respectively;

a first management server configured to manage the first hypervisor according to the first hypervisor protocol; and

a transform server configured to process a command sent from the first management server to the second computing system, the processing being based on virtual machine data stored on the non-volatile storage the second computing system, the second computing system including a first transform agent configured to;

a) redirect commands received from the first management server to the transform server,

b) determine whether or not processing of the command is dependent on the virtual machine data, and

c) translate the command into a command within the command space of the second hypervisor and to communicate the translated command to the second hypervisor, if the processing is not dependent on the virtual machine data.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first transform agent is configured to redirect the command to the transform server if the command is dependent on the virtual machine data.

3. The system of claim 2, where in the first transform agent is configured to translate the command from a first hypervisor protocol to a second protocol prior to redirecting the command to the transform server.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the second protocol includes a command space that includes at least a union of the first and second command spaces.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the first computing system includes a second transform agent configured to receive commands in the second command space.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the second computing system further includes a second transform agent configured to redirect the command to the transform server, the first and second transform agents being configured to receive commands of different command spaces.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the second transform agent is configured to translate commands from the second hypervisor protocol.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the transform server is configured to receive commands in a command space that is at least a union of the first and second command spaces.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a second management server configured to manage the second hypervisor according to the second hypervisor protocol, wherein the first computing system includes a second transform agent configured to receive commands according to the second hypervisor protocol and to redirect the received commands to the transform server.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the second computing system includes the first transform agent configured to receive commands from the first management server according to the first hypervisor protocol and includes a second transform agent configured to receive commands from a second management server according to the second hypervisor protocol.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the first and second transform agents are each configured to translate received commands into a command space that is at least a union of the first and second command spaces.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the command is in the command space of the first hypervisor protocol but not in the command space of the second hypervisor protocol.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the first and second command spaces are disjoint relative to each other.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the transform server is configured to store a copy of the virtual machine data stored on the non-volatile storage of the second computing system.

15. A system comprising:

a first computer system including non-volatile storage and a first hypervisor, the first hypervisor configured to support a plurality of virtual machines on the first computer system and to receive commands according to a first hypervisor protocol;

a second computer system including non-volatile storage and a second hypervisor, the second hypervisor configured to support a plurality of virtual machines on the second computer system and to receive commands according to a second hypervisor protocol, the first hypervisor protocol and the second hypervisor protocol having different first and second command spaces, respectively;

a first management server configured to manage the first hypervisor using a third hypervisor protocol, the third hypervisor profile being different from the first and second hypervisor protocols; and

a transform server configured to process a command sent from the first management server to the second computer system, the processing being based on virtual machine data stored on the non-volatile storage of the second computer system, the second computing system including a first transform agent configured to;

a) redirect commands received from the first management server to the transform server,

b) determine whether or not processing of the first command is dependent on the virtual machine data, and

c) translate the command into a command within the command space of the second hypervisor and to communicate the translated command to the second hypervisor, if the processing is not dependent on the virtual machine data.

16. A transform server comprising:

storage configured to store a copy of first virtual machine data from a first computing system configured to support a plurality of virtual machines;

storage configured to store a copy of second virtual machine data from a second computing system configured to support a plurality of virtual machines; and

a transformation engine configured to process a command received from any one of a plurality of transform agents, the plurality of transform agents configured to receive commands using different hypervisor protocols and to redirect the received commands to the transformation engine, each of the hypervisor protocols having a different command space, the command being a member of a command space that includes at least a union of command spaces of the different hypervisor protocols, the processing including translating the received command to a command in the command space of one of the hypervisor protocols.

17. The transform server of claim 16, wherein the transformation engine is configured to process commands in a plurality of hypervisor protocols.

18. A method of managing a virtual machine, the method comprising:

receiving a command from a virtual machine management server configured to manage a first hypervisor, the command being directed toward a computing system configured to host a plurality of virtual machines;

determining that processing of the command is dependent on data stored on the computing system;

redirecting, using a transform agent, the received command to a transformation engine disposed on a transform server, based on the determination that the processing of the command is dependent on the data, wherein the transform agent is configured to determine whether or not processing of the command is dependent on the data; and

processing the command using the transformation engine and a copy of the data stored on the computing system, the processing including translating the command into a command within the command space of a second hypervisor and communicating the translated command to the second hypervisor.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the command is received at a translation agent disposed on the computing system.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising converting the command from a form compatible with the first hypervisor to a generalized form, the generalized form including a command space comprising a union of at least two hypervisor command spaces.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the command is converted by a translation agent disposed on the computing system.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the command is redirected to the transformation engine in the converted form.

23. The method of claim 18, further comprising communicating a result of the processing of the command from the transformation engine to the computing system and forwarding the result from the computing system to the virtual machine management server.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein translating the command into the command within the command space of the second hypervisor includes converting the result from a generalized form to a form compatible with the first hypervisor, the generalized form including a command space comprising a union of at least a command space of the first hypervisor and the command space of a second hypervisor.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the result is communicated from the transformation engine to the computing system in the generalized form and communicated from the computing system to the virtual machine management system in the form compatible with the first hypervisor.

26. The method of claim 18, further comprising updating the data stored on the computing system based on a result of the processing of the command.

27. The method of claim 18, wherein the data stored on the computing system is configured to characterize a state of a virtual machine operating on the computing system.